On August 21, 1940, Leon Trotsky, the founder of the Fourth International and the co-leader of the Russian Revolution, died from wounds inflicted the day before by an assassin, the Stalinist GPU agent Ramon Mercader.

This is the final part in a four-part series examining the cover-up by the Socialist Workers Party, beginning in 1947, of information exposing the role of Sylvia Callen, the personal secretary of long-time party leader James P. Cannon, as a Stalinist agent.

This is the third part in a four-part series examining the cover-up by the Socialist Workers Party beginning in 1947 of information exposing the role of Sylvia Callen, the personal secretary of long-time party leader James P. Cannon, as a Stalinist agent.

This is the second part in a four-part series examining the cover-up by the Socialist Workers Party, beginning in 1947, of information exposing the role of Sylvia Callen, the personal secretary of long-time party leader James P. Cannon, as a Stalinist agent.

This is the first part in a four-part series examining the cover-up by the Socialist Workers Party beginning in 1947 of information exposing the role of Sylvia Callen, the personal secretary of long-time party leader James P. Cannon, as a Stalinist agent.

David King, who devoted his extraordinary gifts as an artist to salvaging the historical truth of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and its aftermath from beneath the vast edifice of Stalinist crimes and lies, died suddenly in London on May 11.

WSWS correspondents interviewed some of those who attended the meetings last week in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne on “How and Why the GPU Murdered Trotsky” [link]. Members of the audience were asked about why they had come to the meetings and what they thought were the most significant aspects of the reports delivered on Trotsky’s life, his assassination and the Security and the Fourth International investigation, conducted by the International Committee of the Fourth International, into the circumstances surrounding Trotsky’s murder.

A public meeting in London on Sunday November 22 has been added to a series of US meetings that will review the significance of Trotsky’s murder at the hands of the Stalinist GPU and the origins and findings of the Security and the Fourth International investigation.

The assassination of the greatest leader of the 1917 October Revolution marked the climax of the Stalinist regime’s eradication of the socialist workers and intellectuals who had secured the victory of the Bolshevik revolution.

At meetings marking 75 years since Trotsky’s assassination, North will speak on the significance of Trotsky’s murder at the hands of the Stalinist GPU and the origins and findings of the Security and the Fourth International investigation.

Seventy-five years after his death, Trotsky emerges ever more clearly as a world historical figure who not only influenced the course of the 20th century, but whose writings and ideas remain an essential guide for orienting the working class today.

Scholarship, not war propaganda!

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE) at Humboldt University is running in the upcoming student elections against the drive to turn the university into a center of war propaganda.

The International Youth and Students for Social Equality have sent an open letter calling upon the University Board of the Humboldt University to censure Professor Jörg Baberowski for his undemocratic behavior.

IYSSE meeting at the Humboldt University in Berlin

By
our correspondents,
12 February 2014

Around one hundred participants discussed the invitation extended by Professor Jörg Baberowski to Robert Service, the author of a discredited biography of Leon Trotsky, at a meeting last Saturday at the Humboldt University in Berlin.

By
the Partei für Soziale Gleichheit (Socialist Equality Party of Germany),
11 February 2014

On February 12, British author Robert Service will speak at Berlin’s Humboldt University about his internationally discredited biography of Leon Trotsky. The Partei für Soziale Gleichheit has formulated nine questions for Service.

February 8 meeting in Berlin

Wolfgang Weber of the Socialist Equality Party of Germany will elaborate the critique of Robert Service’s Trotsky biography and discuss the philosophical and political foundations of the post-Soviet school of historical falsification.

We publish here the text of a lecture given at the Historians’ Convention at the University of Mainz in Germany by David North, chairman of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site.

The circumstances surrounding Suhrkamp Verlag’s release of the German edition of Robert Service’s denunciatory biography of Leon Trotsky can only be assessed as a scandal that has tarnished the reputation of the publishing house.

An interview with Professor Mario Kessler on the Trotsky biography by Robert Service—Part one

By
Wolfgang Weber,
21 May 2012

This is the first part of a two-part interview with German historian Professor Mario Kessler on the 2009 biography of Leon Trotsky by Robert Service. Professor Kessler is a co-signatory of a letter sent by 14 European sociologists and political scientists to the Suhrkamp Verlag publishing house raising grave reservations about its plan to bring out a German edition of Service’s book.

We are publishing here the lecture given by David North, chairman of the International Editorial Board of the World Socialist Web Site, at the University of Leipzig on March 16. North is the author of In Defense of Leon Trotsky, a defense of historical truth and the legacy of Trotsky against the falsifications in the biography of Trotsky by Robert Service.

From the archives

By
International Committee of the Fourth International,
17 November 2011

We are republishing a statement of the International Committee of the Fourth International originally published on June 15, 1990 in the Fourth International magazine on the death of Mark Zborowski. Zborowski, a GPU spy against the Trotskyist movement, was responsible for the murder of leading cadre of the Fourth International in the 1930s and for preparing, along with other Stalinist agents, the assassination of Leon Trotsky.

“A book that fails to meet the basic standards of historical scholarship”

By
the Political Committee Socialist Equality Party (US),
28 June 2011

The American Historical Review has published a critical examination of two books: the denunciatory biography Trotsky by British historian Robert Service and In Defense of Leon Trotsky by David North, the chairman of both the Socialist Equality Party in the United States and the international editorial board of the World Socialist Web Site.

The WSWS organized a panel on “The Cultural, Economic and Geo-strategic Thought of Leon Trotsky: A Retrospective Analysis 70 years after His Assassination,” at the 42nd annual convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, & Eurasian Studies (formerly the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies), held November 18-21 in Los Angeles. About 1,400 historians, political scientists, economists, and literary scholars presented papers on a wide array of topics.

New release from Mehring Books

Pre-order your copy today

31 July 2010

Mehring Books announces the publication of In Defense of Leon Trotsky by David North, a new collection of essays exploring Trotsky’s lasting contributions to the socialist movement and exposing the campaign of historical falsification against him.